Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/224

 216 NEGRO term negro, therefore, is not synonymous with African, and is not a national appellation, but denotes an ideal type distinguished by cer- tain physical characters, such as are seen in the people of the coast of Guinea, viz. : black skin, woolly hair, flat nose, thick everted lips, and a prognathous form of the skull. Ne- groes occupy about one half of Africa, exclu- ding the northern and southern extremities, but including its most fertile portions. Out of Africa, they are found in various parts of Asia and its islands, and throughout America and the West Indies, whither they were origi- nally carried chiefly as slaves (see SLAVERY) ; they are rare in Europe. They were nearly unknown to the Hebrews and the Homeric Greeks ; the Egyptians, however, about 2300 B. 0., became acquainted with negroes through the conquests of their rulers, and represent- ed them on their monuments as early as 1600 ; for nearly 35 centuries the type has remained unchanged in Egypt. The Greeks first knew them in the 7th century B. 0., their Ethio- pians being merely any people darker than the Hellenic, like the Arabs, Egyptians, Lib- yans, or Carthaginians, none of which are negroes. The typical negroes of the Guinea coasts are generally rude and nearly naked sav- ages, of a deep black color and ugly features ; in the interior, many of the tribes, like the Fan and others visited since 1855 by Paul Du Ohaillu and Winwood Reade, are fierce canni- bals, but fine-looking, warlike, ingenious, and skilful in the working of iron. Those on the Slave coast are the most degraded, selling their neighbors to slave dealers. In the vast regions explored by Livingstone, Barth, Du Chaillu, Burton, Speke, Baker, Schweinfurth, and oth- er recent travellers, there are many tribes more or less savage, for an account of which the reader is referred to the respective special notices in this work, and chiefly to the narra- tives of these explorers. The Caffres of South Africa may also be classed among negroes, as well as the fine and ferocious races of Mo- zambique and the E. coast of Africa. The skin of the negro is soft and silky, dull cherry red in the infant and growing black very soon ; it differs from that of the whites prin- cipally in the greater amount of pigment cells in the rete Halpighii (the epidermis being uncolored), and in the greater number of cu- taneous glands. The hair, though called wool, does not present the characters of the latter, especially the imbricated projecting scales, and differs but little from that of the other races except in color and in its curled and twisted form; it is harsh and wiry, and, according to some inicroscopists, more or loss flattened, grooved longitudinally, lying perpendicular- ly in the dermis and piercing the cuticle in this direction, the coloring matter being dif- fused throughout its substance, and in a few instances so imbricated as to be capable of felting like wool. The skull is long and nar- row, with a depressed forehead, prominent occiput and jaws, a facial angle of 70 to 65, and an internal capacity of about 82 cubic inch- es ; a peculiarity of some negro crania, though by no means constant, is that the sphenoid does not reach the parietal bones, the coronal suture joining the margin of the temporals; the skull is very thick and solid, as would be indicated by the negro's favorite mode of fight- ing, both sexes butting like rams, and so flat that burdens are easily carried upon it. The stature of the negro is seldom 6 ft., and rare- ly below 5; some of their figures are fine, especially the torso, and have been taken by Ghantrey and other sculptors as models ; in the female the development is so rapid that it is common to see childhood's natural grace combined with the prominent characteristics of maturity. Seen from behind, the spine usu- ally appears depressed, owing to the greater curvature of the ribs ; the nates are more flat- tened than in other races, and join the thighs almost at a right angle instead of a curve. Besides the characters already mentioned, may be noticed the projecting upper edge of the or- bit ; broad retreating chin ; great development of lower part of face ; small eyes, in which but little of the yellowish white ball is seen ; small, thick ears, standing off from the head, with a small lobe and a general stunted look; black iris ; very wide zygomatic arches, giving large space for the muscles of the lower jaw ; large and transverse opening of the nasal cavity. The pelvis is long and narrow, its average cir- cumference being from 26 to 28 in. instead of 30 to 36 as in the whites ; this shape in the female, according to Vrolik and Weber, cor- responds to the characteristic shape of the negro head; those writers consider it a type of degradation, as it approaches that of the quadrumana in the more vertical direction of the iliac bones and their less width, in the smaller breadth of sacrum, and in the conse- quent less extent of the hips. The bones of the leg are bent forward and outward, the tibia and fibula being more convex than in Europeans ; the calves are very high ; the feet and hands are flatter ; the heel bone, instead of being arched, is continued in a straight line with the other bones of the foot, causing it to project more behind; in consequence of the longer lever thus obtained, less muscular force is necessary in the movements of the feet, and the muscles of the calf are consequently less developed ; the shoulder blades are shorter and broader ; the muscles have shorter bellies and longer tendons, as is very evident in the legs and arms. Negroes have less nervous sensi- bility than the whites, and are not subject to nervous affections ; they are comparatively in- sensible to pain, bearing severe surgical opera- tions well ; the effects of opium and other nar- cotics appear rather in the digestive, circula- tory, and respiratory functions, than in the cerebral and nervous system ; they are little subject to yellow fever, and more to yaws and other cutaneous affections ; they are generally